8,710.11euros

We could play a fun game with what you could buy or do with 8,710.11euros but let’s just keep this brief and to the point.

The German Social Security just wrote me a letter saying I have one month to pay that amount to them. One month! They see how much I have earned in the past 4 years and they act like it’s an amount for 100euros or something. That is roughly 6 months’ salary for me they want at one time. Thank god I have a chance to file an appeal and I will be meeting with my friend to discuss that tomorrow.

Also on the work permit front, I went to the foreign authorities to get yet another 90-day extension to live and work here. They gave me only a month extension! The last 15 months I have been going and getting 3-month extensions, something I find pretty crappy considering that I should have had a 2-year extension anyway. They said they were being generous because they didn’t have to give me an extension. (Can you believe that? After all we’ve been through, the bitch said she’s being generous after:

1)What she “offerred” me to finish up this problem wasn’t possible. She said I had to make 50-60 “voluntary” payments to German social security, which would have been 80euro/month for more than 4 years but lo and behold I learn that I am obliged to pay social security. I wish someone had told me. (it probably was in some of my contracts but seriously, who reads that shit?)

2)I asked her if she thought other language teachers here in Freiburg had received permanent residence in Freiburg without having to pay social security or invest a million euro. She said she was pretty certain that there were not any. I informed her that I work with two every monday and that there are more. That set her back a moment.

3)They took nearly 3 months to write back to me with some sort of bullshit reason why I couldn’t live here anymore only to say that the Social Security office should have written me letting me know that the status of my case was ongoing.)

Do I have 8,710.11euros? In Germany, no. I have it in the States but that is neither here nor there. I have my own reasons why I think I should not have to pay this amount, namely:

1)I have my own private pension scheme in the US. I’ve had it since before I moved to Germany. It has approximately 20,000 dollars in it, 8,000 more dollars in the account than the German Social Security would be asking for me.

2)Every month I pay in approximately 260dollars, almost the exact amount they want me to pay here each month based on my tax returns.

3)That would crush my finances here, putting me in jeopardy of actually not having enough to pay my bills.

4)Every single German person I know has told me this is a bad investment.

5)I have been in Germany for than 4 years and have never received a penny from the “State”.

6)Perhaps my parents could “underwrite” me for any possible future time where I didn’t have money coming in because of illness or simply unemployment. That could satisfy them that I need to be taken care of for my future.

Well, it’s 3.54pm, I don’t have to work for about 69 hours, I’m going jogging and then I’m going to take what little money I still have and take my girlfriend out to dinner! Jebiga!